


The Bends

by Neverander



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Meta, kind of, there are some allusions to suicide here but nothing graphic, what happens when you rise too fast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6743914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverander/pseuds/Neverander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The Bends- a condition that occurs in scuba divers or high altitude or aerospace events when dissolved gases (mainly nitrogen) come out of solution in bubbles and can affect just about any body area including joints, lung, heart, skin and brain. Typically caused when one rises too quickly to the surface causing rapid changes in pressure. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bends

Her mother told her she had the heart of a hero. That she had to protect her baby cousin. That she had to protect her new world. But when she finally arrived her mission was gone. Kal didn't need protection and he was already saving the world. So she tries to do good in small ways and Alex nearly dies. She feels the weight of failure. The disappointment of her mother hangs over her, she feels the judgment of her entire people, and she wishes she could be better, do more. Instead she puts on Jeremiah's glasses and tries to bury her accent along with the rest of Krypton.

-

Kara sits up on the roof of the Danvers' house gently fingering the edges of Jeremiah's glasses as she listens to Alex cry in her mother's arms two floors down. Jeremiah is dead and it's all her fault. She doubts Alex will ever forgive her for this. She knows she'll never forgive herself. She stares up, straining her vision to where she can just barely make out a faded red spot in the night sky. She wonders what Rao was thinking sending her here, to these people, to ruin them. She should have never been sent to earth. She should have died with the rest of her family, and friends, and planet. She slides the glasses back on her face, everything fades back to normal levels, but she feels that weight even more. She has to fix this, somehow. 

-

In college she is well liked, she knows everyone in every class, but she makes no friends. She just can't keep them in her life. She doesn't try. She has to do something that will make a difference. She can't be distracted. She decides to go for Kal's major since that's the closest she can get to following in his footsteps in any meaningful way. She loves him but she resents him every time she sees a natural disaster and can't do anything to help. This is the time when her and Alex are at their most distant; neither has time in their life for anything else. If Kara had known what Alex was really doing she would have felt even worse but as it is she shoulders the weight she's had since she was thirteen and keeps working. She can do this. She can do better. She can be better. 

-

By the time she interviews with Ms. Grant saying that there's nothing special about her has never been easier but that's why she's here. She wants to do something, something that matters, even if it's just helping someone who can actually make a difference. The forest fire throws her concentration and she feels the weight of failure press down on her. When she gets the job she almost feels a little lighter, almost. 

-

She saves Alex. She saves an entire plane full of people. The weight lifts from her so suddenly that she literally floats off the wing of the plane before she shoots off into the night. 

-

Alex tells her to stop but she can't. She hasn't felt this free in twelve years. 

-

Alex is an agent. Alex is not pursuing an academic career in biochemistry like she always wanted. Alex is risking her life to keep Kara safe. Kara wants to scream, and shake her, and tell her to go back to her real life, and punch Hank Henshaw right in the face for dragging another Danvers into a fight so they can die, pointlessly, for him. Kara's fury threatens to overwhelm her and she has to leave but the rage isn't heavy. It's light in her chest making her feet float off the floor, ready to take action. She's not going to stop. If anything she's going to go at this even harder. She won't let Alex die for this, for her, she won't. 

-

She's never been this happy; saving people, finally being everything she was sent here to be. She's never been this angry; dealing with memories of krypton and all her mother's decisions. She isn't sure if being Supergirl is good for her but she doesn't care. She won't fail her people anymore. 

-

She burns out her powers and Alex kills a man for her. When she stares down the barrel of a gun she doesn't feel anything but sadness. He hands it to her and the lightness she feels isn't from relief but from the sense that she has made a difference. He believed in her words more than her strength and she thinks she can do this; she is doing this. 

-

Her mother failed Krypton.  
Her aunt is failing earth.  
Kara will be better than them both. 

-

Kara is home. It's bright and the red light is exactly how she remembers. Why would she have to remember it? She has never been without it. She takes her mother's hand and let's herself be lead to Kal-el as she has never known him, fragile and small. He smiles at her and rapid, perfect, Kryptonese falls from his young mouth instead of the stilted English-accented version she is used to- no, he has always spoken this way. It's his native language of course he has the accent down; he isn't a toddler anymore. Her baby cousin has grown so fast. The lightness seeps into her the way the yellow-no red-the way the red sun seeps into her skin. She lets it pull her away until a woman appears and the world starts to shake. The woman cries and claims to be her sister and Kara is confused because she doesn't have a sister but the world is shaking and suddenly everything is too bright. The red sunlight is too strong and her mother's smile doesn't sit right in her face and Kal's voice is wrong and his Kryptonese is too smooth and the English coming from this woman sounds right.  
Alex reaches for her; Kara reaches back.  
She follows her. 

-

Kara loses her planet for the second time. Her rage has never been stronger. 

-

Astra dies and Kara's rage simmers at Hank- J’onn-the man whose face she always associated with the death of Jeremiah Danvers and she finds she simply can't look at him anymore. He isn't that man but she is so angry right now that it doesn't matter. Alex looks at her like she is fragile but won't meet her eyes.  
Kara wonders if it's because of what she said under the Black Mercy but she doesn't want to talk about it so she doesn't ask. 

-

Alex killed Astra. All the anger that had been running through her tightens in her chest. It slides away just as quickly as Alex breaks in front of her over the thought of losing her. Kara pulls her close. Losing Alex isn't an option and Alex will never lose her. She wonders for the briefest moment if this makes them even. But no. Alex was protecting J’onn and Jeremiah died for nothing- for her-for nothing. She stops J’onn from leaving because he is family. He is Alex's family and hers. She doesn't know when that happened. 

-

This has to be the lightest she has ever felt. She doesn't hide any part of herself. She doesn't simper or smile or sugarcoat her words. Is this how Cat Grant feels all the time? No wonder she never bothers with niceties. Kara is bored. Kara burns through her friends one by one. She throws Cat Grant off her own building because how dare that woman still think she has any power over her? She is done working for a bunch of halfwit human agents. She is done listening to Alex tell her what is best for her. This? This freedom is what is best for her. She won't give it up. Ever. She fights J’onn J’onzz with everything she has and it feels good to rip through skyscrapers and tear up gravel. She never wants to stop. 

-

No one is dead. She sees Alex's arm and remember instantly the sound that her bones made as they snapped. She X-rays it and sees it shattered. Her chest is so tight she can barely breathe through it. It's the heaviest she's felt since becoming Supergirl. She stares into Alex's eyes, remembers those same tear-filled eyes staring back at her through the red haze of heat vision and she can't look anymore. 

-

Cat Grant, of all people, forgives her. She doesn't deserve it but she wants it so badly. She didn't realize, deep down, just how much she craved the freedom to be as powerful as she could truly be. It scares her. It's why she never goes full out if she can help it. She wants to win back the city. She was only ever sent here to protect. She can fix this. She will fix this. 

-

Alex and J’onn are gone. The city still hates her. Jeremiah is alive. She tries not to feel abandoned by the only family she has left. It's her fault they're on the run. It's her fault that Alex has to search for her father in the first place. She wants to go with them. If anyone should find Jeremiah it should be her but she has to protect the city. She has to protect everyone. So she stays. At least she finally told Lucy. 

-

She meets an inter-dimensional speedster who can eat almost as much as she can and she almost dies. The people of the city rally around her. They give her back the hope she once gave to them and she feels light again. 

-

Myriad is nothing like what she expects. She isn't sure what she expected to begin with but it isn't this. Lucy shoots her and every alien she ever captured is nearly freed. She digs a bullet out of her own arm and searches for anyone at all who can help her figure this out.  
Cat Grant is unaffected, of course, and then there's Maxwell Lord who seems to have known what myriad would do and told no one. Chose to protect himself and Cat and no one else. She listens to the voice of Non through her friends and her rage lifts her up. She isn't fast enough- she isn't good enough-she can't save them all and Kelly dies spattered across the pavement just outside Catco. Cat talks her back from the edge, the edge where she considers Maxwell's plan because she was sent here to save earth but hasn't everything this year proven she can't? That she'll fail her only mission just when she finally accepts it? That everyone on earth will suffer because she isn't a hero at all and she never should have been sent here?  
But Cat pulls her back. Back to the place of hope. The hope she felt when that man handed over his gun. The hope the people gave back to her not long after she broke their trust in her. Hope that holds her up and let's her hold up others.  
And then Alex is in front of her with a Kryptonite sword and armor, and Non's words spilling angrily from her mouth. She lunges and Kara knows she can’t fight Alex. She won’t. 

-

Alex nearly kills her. Eliza pulls her back and Kara knows that hope is the answer now more than ever. They can do this together. And they do. For a while. Of course there's more. There always is. Kal is still down from Myriad and Kara can't help but feel like she didn't protect him the one time he needed her.  
It ends how it was always going to end. She was always going to give her life to protect Kal, to protect this planet; it's just happening a little later than expected. She was wrong before. This is the lightest she's ever felt. She says goodbye to everyone in her life that matters, the people who have been there for her since she became Supergirl. She says goodbye without really saying it and hopes it will be enough. She can't even begin to say goodbye to Alex so she does the next best thing. She gives her a piece of her. And then she goes.  
Failure isn't an option and Non doesn't know her that well if he thinks she will be bogged down by rage. If he thinks that mentioning her dead parents will distract her. Her rage fills her up, lifts her higher, she burns out his eyes and she isn't sorry at all.  
It's everything they feared it would be. Maxwell Lord was right, of course. She has to fly it off world. She breathes deeply. She calls Alex. She can hear Alex's pain through the phone despite how well she tries to hide it. She finally says everything she has wanted to say for the past year. For the past thirteen years. She is so sorry for ruining her life by coming to earth, but she is fixing it now. She is doing what she was always supposed to do and now Alex can too. Alex can even find Jeremiah, which is more than Kara could have ever hoped for. Alex can be everything she wanted to be before Kara got in the way and Kara can finally end this. She loves Alex. She loves Alex more than anyone else on this planet. And she's going to save them both. 

-

Kara unleashes every bit of power she has ever held back to get Fort Rozz into space. It floats free from her or she floats free from it. She isn't sure. She doesn't bother to hold her breath as ice creeps over her skin. She stares out at the stars, as everything gets cold and dark around the edges. Finally. She finally did it. She can rest now can't she? She protected Kal, and Alex, and the whole planet, just like she was supposed to.  
Kara closes her eyes.  
She's going home.


End file.
